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“What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?”
— Allen Ginsberg
Are you ready for a Journey?
PS Critiques always welcome but no plaudits or emoting please.

I don't know if my letter will weigh much, since I am not from the UK, but I wrote one anyway

The fact that you are an artist should pull more weight than were you hail from Kate, thanks for doing that. Dave

__________________
“What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?”
— Allen Ginsberg
Are you ready for a Journey?
PS Critiques always welcome but no plaudits or emoting please.

For some reason I find them very similar in a way though there is skill in evidence.

Wow , Id say more then skill, that last one called auntie , she had wrinkles the realism in that is fantastic, though it kinda looks to me like its photo , and defeats my mind thinking of the artistics behind the painting if you like ...

ive not had a chance to go yet Chica to busy drawing, ... its on till July ,

...your right it must be a trend Laurie ...someone was talking to me about veiwing Sargents paintings on the online gallery , but I got say theres not much holds a candle to seeing his work up close and personal ... I bloody well love him as much as Bouguereau ... man I almost wish Id been born a man in their day and age , Id would of given them a run for their suspenders , I think .. oh gees ha well ok you have to think big to be big , and I will be one day ... even if I die trying ...art is in my blood along with other things

well one thing I can say about the BP Portrait prize is that they are all portraits, and from what I can tell they are not trying to manipulate the public to embrace an art agenda or install the reputations of a particular stable of artists.

Mac isn't there a prize for the the ones that get picked by the guys that hang them as well , or am I dreaming here I thought there was not sure on that

I do think it's not really staying on path, I must agree With general thoughts here , they need to rethink the abstraction thing alot !!! I mean come on we have such great talent in this country so why are they not seeing what we see , if it was mainstream which clearly it's not , I would think and hope more realist artists would enter , but it does kinda make one wonder what the #@$); is going on in their heads !!

Sandra yes the Packers Prize is usually one of the best paintings in the exhibiition and more in tune with the public taste rather than the deliberate artistic direction of the Gallery which has its own agenda.
Yes there are a number of excellent portrait artists who will never win and I think that a lot probably don't even bother now.

Arrh Yes Mac , I see said the wann-be artist THIS IS MUCH MORE LIKE IT REALLY ~OPPS sorry big caps there excited to see that painting of John wood ...and well I liked reading the head storemans thoughts towards this , he has the majority say on the prize winner so I read~ ... he says 21 years of common sense ...Cheezzin up big here ...

Theres hope yet , yes Im ever the optimist that is when Im not doubting my own self ...

Thankyou Mac ... Id of course would have picked yours , but then Im bais to what I know and dig

Recently my wife and I had a few days break and stayed at a small town called Turangi,
at the south end of lake Taupo (a very popular tourist destination in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand).
Turangi has missed the tourist hoardes and is a lovely sleepy little town.

There is a small geothermal area near Turangi.

(complete with boiling mud!)

They've got a geothermally heated public swimming pool with an interesting sign, setting out the rules of use.
Although the water is sufficiently hot that it's far too much bother to attempt the active banned activities, but all the swimmers seemed to be wearing swimming togs.
They also have private pools where the water is the real thing, hot water full of minerals which comes out of the ground.
It is not a good idea to put your face in this water.

Now, I'm a fairly law abiding sort of bloke, so the next time I went for a swim
I did the right and proper thing!

This is at a small lake south of Lake Taupo called Rotopounamu which means "Green Lake".
It's a very beautiful place, and you can walk right around the lake which takes half a day to walk, doing it leisurely with lots of stops.

There are 3 streams which feed the lake, but no known outlet.
Probably there is an underground stream somewhere which drains the lake and keeps the water lovely and clean.
There could also be unknown underground streams feeding the lake.

The first few inches of water was warm enough, but it got rapidly colder as it got deeper!
I only stayed in a couple of minutes, and couldn't talk my wife into going in at all!

And the locals don't seem to be bothered by the occasional human visitor!

I don't know anything about the dragonfly,
but the ducks are a pair of Whio, or Blue Duck.
These are on the endangered list, mainly due to habitat loss caused by hydro
power schemes.

Great discussion of prize winners. Thanks for posting links because it was fun to look at them all.

Jonathan! What a hoot!

Ok, I asked this question in response to comments to the thread I posted yesterday, but I would like the regulars in "Go Figure" to chime in. Here is my question: how big are your feet? Mine seem to be about a head-length. Is that normal? The human body is so hard to learn, but that is why we love the challenge, right?